Tom Rinaldo (22,668 posts)
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217780981
When it comes down to it, how many people want to go to war against the U.S. Government?
Trump's big bluff is finally being called. The most potent force extremists wield is intimidation. Most people abhor violence, and go to great lengths to avoid it. Faced with a potential serious threat, appeasement is not uncommon as a response. The bigger the threat brandished, the bigger the capitulation demanded to in order to withdraw it. "The Rule of Law?" Sounds nice in the abstract, but is pressing a charge of business fraud, really worth triggering off deadly riots in our streets? Intimidation worked for Trump, until last week.
America has seen deadly riots before. Lynch mobs were common deadly riots. Cell blocks have gone up in flames in deadly prison riots. Inner cities have been convulsed by deadly riots due to racial injustice. Riots are serious. Deaths from them are serious. But even America's deadliest riots fail to equal the carnage from one days fighting in Ukraine last week. What can bring down America is not militant extremists engaging in violence. What can bring down America is our democratic institutions failing to hold.
Seriously. Literally. How many Americans are willing to engage in full scale armed combat against the U.S. Army and the National Guard?
Hundreds maybe. Possibly thousands. Sure, many more than that say they are willing to fight the government. They run around in the woods in camouflage with guns, but how many of them are actually willing to go hand to hand with the infantry?
I'm not saying all right wing extremists are cowards, but the ones who literally are suicidal pursue death by cops individually. The strategy of the extreme right has always been to light the match that somehow sparks the coming "great conflict"that will finally purify America for the Christian Nationalist Right At most they engage in sneak attacks and isolated acts of terror. But there are never plans for a coordinated armed assault on State Capitals. There are never plans to physically occupy Washington and install a new government.
They had the then President of the United States on their side, and security forces that failed to take them seriously, on January 6, 2021. The far right was counting on inside help that day, on a declaration of martial law, on the National Guard protecting them and on presidential pardons for any and all of their transgressions. They weren't up for war with the U.S. Army. They know they would be crushed if it ever came to that, and most of their supporters would dissolve back into "normal" civilian life, hoping not to come to "the attention of authorities."
If blood starts to flow the Right has already lost. When the threats they make lead to their own loss of liberty, the Right is routed. Trump is facing the consequences now of his bluff finally being called. Yes we may still face some civil unrest, but a functioning democracy can deal with that if our institutions continue to function the way they were designed.
Bernardo de La Paz (44,791 posts)
3. Some idiots will take action, but most magats fear a "J6 trap"
They have been lied to so much and lie to themselves, that they really think people got arrested on J6 for simple basic ordinary presence at a demonstration, peacefully protesting.
So they fear arrest at ANY simple basic protest.
But there will be idiots who will use their guns somewhere, some time, on Tuesday or after. Have courage. Be resolute.
Be confident. This is the beginning of the end of the rump.
localroger (3,273 posts)
8. At J6 the hardcore were depending on the mass of dipshits to provide cover
And it largely worked. But it won't work again, because would-be dipshits now know that they could be found and prosecuted for their dipshittery. The hardcore assholes don't care about that but the dipshits do, and without the dipshits to provide a mass of people for them to blend into the hardcore assholes can't effect their strategy.
orthoclad (923 posts)
6. Wrong question
We're already seeing asymmetric aka guerilla warfare, in the form of power station attacks. And don't forget the bois in 2020 who sniped cops, trying to stir up conflict during the Floyd upheaval.
I saw a website printed in a Nazi-looking font celebrating "asymmetric warfare" after the NC power station attack. They've been practicing for years. Don't forget the plot to take out the power in a majority black city (Baltimore) a few months ago.
They won't go for confrontation unless they have overwhelming odds, as they did on J6. The odds then were a ombination of their numbers and the gelding of response - DoD nto answering the phone, Nat Guard disarmed, etc. Also don't forget that some in the Captol Police collaborated with the insurrection. I saw video of Cap cops opening barricades and waving the mob in. J6 was a one-off thing; the organizers will avoid confrontation now.
orthoclad (923 posts)
16. They also have insurrectonists holding power in Congress
and the Supreme Court to give them cover. Distract over drag shows, subpoena and harass the opposition, then the Court will free the leaders on appeal.
A large portion of the J6ers are already out of jail and being celebrities.
Star Member IbogaProject (1,699 posts)
7. Until enough inn The military switch
That is how it usually happens, I hope our military training really programs against that. Our military was instrumental is carefully deflecting the worst that could have happened J6.
Star Member yardwork (56,078 posts)
13. Many of us on DU remember the calls for revolution in the 1960s and 70s
It didn't happen. Even in the midst of an unpopular war with a draft, there was no revolution. Instead, Nixon resigned, Ford pardoned him, Jimmy Carter was elected and hamstrung at every turn, and the Republicans committed treason and put a puppet in the White House.
All the riots and protests led to victory by the opposing party. The American people did not join the socialist revolution. Instead, they turned more to the right. Backlash.
Now it's the Republicans who look radical. This will end one of two ways. (1) There will be a corrective turn to the left by the American people, with a repudiation of right-wing extremism, or (2) there will be a military coup directed by right-wing billionaires, loss of our democracy, and installation of an authoritarian regime that looks like Gilead in The Handmaid's Tale.
In neither case will millions of Americans fight the government.
The thing about DUmmies and leftists, is that they nearly always ask the wrong questions because, among other reasons, they fear the right answers.
The question of how many want to or how many are willing is the wrong question.
The right question is: "How many would it take?"
See: The DC snipers, DUmmies.
A couple thousand truly motivated individuals, could bring leftist America in their big cities to a screeching halt, while rural America went right on living their lives.
It only took two idiots shooting out of the hole in the trunk of a car with a poodle shooter to lock down DC to a large degree. And that wasn't even really all that creative.
If you idiot leftists would think just for a minute with moderate success, you'd realize that the reason it isn't already happening, isn't because it can't be done. It's because the will to do so isn't quite there yet.
Laws don't prevent it. Will or lack there of prevents it.
Sooner or later, probably sooner given the degree to which you feel entitled to push people, you'll figure that out.
The Boston area was put in lockdown after the Tsarnaev brothers were being pursued. Dzokhar Tsarnaev was caught after the lockdown was lifted.
Tom Rinaldo (22,668 posts)
When it comes down to it, how many people want to go to war against the U.S. Government...